No Direct Route to B-School

Harvard Business School admissions statistics indicate that undergraduates without full-time work experience are less likely to be admitted directly than are students more familiar to the corporate world.

The school's director of admissions, Jill H. Fadule, said yesterday that "no undergraduates have been admitted [directly] in the past three years."

During her four-year tenure, Fadule said, only "one undergraduate has been admitted directly to the MBA program." While other undergraduates have been admitted, their actual attendance has been deferred.

Unlike other business schools, full-time work experience is not a prerequisite at Harvard, Fadule said. At the same time, however, the school's official prospectus recommends "two to three years" of it.

Figures show students of the Class of '96 have an average of 4.13 years of job experience, according to communications office spokesperson James E. Aisner '68. Twenty years ago, about one-fourth of the enrolled students were fresh graduates, Fadule said.

Today, Business School classroom discussions tend to make boardroom experience a necessity. "People get so much more out of the program with experience," Fadule said.

In fact, it is the "rare" college senior who is strong enough to gain from the program as well as contribute to it, she said.

Undergraduates understand the realities. Out of 6526 applications for the class of '96, less than 200 were from college students.

Since the spring of 1992, the business school has been reviewing its MBA program under the Leadership and Learning Initiative, a multi-year endeavor. But this initiative does not affect admissions policies, according to Aisner.